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From a rented room to jail - ‘It could happen to anyone’ Page 6
Treading through history in Denia
Vol. 1 Issue 10
www.theolivepress.es
Page 24
The great outdoors, just draped in luxury Page 26
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August 1st - August 14th 2019
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IT was the scam which fuelled the Spanish dream. The cash flow paid the mortgage to a villa with sweeping views over Javea, it paid for first-class trips to New York, Vegas and Vancouver, not to mention the vintage Mor-
MORRIS MINOR: Brought with robbed cash
EXCLUSIVE By Joshua Parfitt
ris Minor for coastal escapades at home. But the €270,000 that the aptly named Jane and Bill Scammell stole from an eldery couple they were caring for in Javea saw them sentenced to four years in July. An Alicante court ruled the pair, aged 51 and 57, had ‘taken advantage’ of their infirm employers who became ‘totally dependent’ as their respective illnesses worsened. The crimes began at the end of 2011, when the Scammells started siphoning cash into their personal accounts through small cash deposits, cheques and credit card transfers. They did not stop even when the elderly wife passed away in 2013, and while the husband suffered from
SCAMMERS: Brits Jane (left) and Bill took advantage of elderly Parkinson’s and cerebral arterio- But the British fraudsters kept sclerosis that rendered him increas- €102,890 of pilfered cash as the ingly ‘incapacitated and with lapses credit card transfers were ‘unverin memory’. ifiable’ having been made in small The judge ruled the pair could keep amounts of ‘between €100 and €116,680 from a total of €385,902 €600’. as salaries, while from the unjusti- Sources have told the Olive Press fied €270,000 they were ordered to how the couple, who have not been pay €166,332 to the Dutch family of named until now, ‘laughed off’ the the deceased. scam to family and friends. “It appears that Jane had absolutely no compassion or sense of right and wrong,” a relative close to the family, who asked to remain nameless, told the Olive Press. 2 CRIME “The disgusting thing is that they hawk downthe English press was friend’ of former Teulada-MorairaCrackHector seem to have gotten away with some mayor Carlos Lin- ares. naming and shaming her, but he of it. “It’s wonderful, said ‘the times “Jane used to use the words ‘cash because you refor keeping dogs cow’ to refer to the couple. ally wrote the Blackin “She was accumulating money cab this condition rapist’s truth,” Boas told sometimes by charging a ridiculous costa are plans now over’.” €50 to take the dogs around the the Olive Press. The dogs’ owner, block for this old couple. “In our fight we Fernando Serrat, “She wanted to fleece them for all really need that has now agreed they have.” courage.” to hand them When the elderly woman passed Boas said Teulaover for adoption. away, Jane and Bill allegedly began da’s new councilHave you been to scheming to ‘get what they could’ Spit and run COLLARED lor for public ser- FLASHBACK: the police about Dog appeal before it was too late. vices, Hector Moanimals in terrible “It was around 2013 that the Scamrales, is ‘now completely on the conditions near to your homes? mell’s lifestyle began to change,” the
VICTORY: Dogs saved from ‘hellhole’ www.theolivepress.es
THE Olive Press has been ‘pivotal’ in the release of six podenco dogs trapped in an abandoned house on the Costa Blanca. Grace Boas, 63, last month claimed the hounds had been locked up for ‘eight years’ among their own ‘excrement and worms’. Following four denuncias and two instancias, the dogs are now being sought a suitable shelter and will be rehomed ‘very soon’. Nothing was being done to save them as the 77-year-old owner’s daughter was allegedly ‘a
July 4th - July 17th 2019
NEWS IN BRIEF Held to account
A SURVEILLANCE helicopter has caught a man travelling at 223 km/h on the AP-7 motorway on the Costa Blanca while ‘high on several drugs’. The Pegasus helicopter from Spain’s Directorate-General for Traffic (DGT) caught the driver at 13.42 in Gandia on Saturday, before notifying the Guardia Civil’s traffic unit. The man was detained and tested positive to ‘various narcotics’.
SPAIN has been referred to the EU Court of Justice for imposing disproportionate fines on taxpayers who failed to report assets held in other EU countries.
Little ears
A BOY aged 10 has rescued a 64-yearold Dutchman who fell into a fissure in the mountains of Picos de Europa, northern Spain. The boy split from his family to take photographs when he heard the injured man scream for help.
Once a wolf
FIVE members of the ‘Wolf Pack’ gang have been found guilty of rape after the Supreme Court overturned a regional court’s lesser conviction of sexual assault. The five men will each be jailed for 15 years, instead of 9 years, for raping an 18-year-old and filming it in Pamplona.
Delay
PEDRO Sanchez has delayed a vote until July 23 in order to convince Pablo Iglesias’ Unidos Podemos to for a coalition with the socialist party. PSOE won 123 seats during the April elections, but need 176 to become a majority in the Spanish congress.
Unexpected baggage
A MILITARY official travelling with Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro was detained in Sevilla after 39kg of cocaine was found in his suitcase on the presidential plane.
The Spanish government brought in surveillance helicopters to catch speeders back in 2007. A total of eight now patrol the Spanish skies. The Pegasus choppers uses two cameras which monitor the speed of a car and record its number plate. The cameras can also determine if a driver is using a mobile phone or riding without a seatbelt.
Trapped in hell
MONSTER: John Worboys
British expat says council are ‘ignoring’ attempts to rescue mistreated dogs
A BRITISH expat who has fought for eight years to rescue dogs trapped in a ‘hellhole’ says town hall councillors do nothing due to their friendship with the owner. Grace Boas, 63, said there are six podenco hunting dogs stuck in an abandoned house
EXCLUSIVE By Joshua Parfitt
Fernando Serrat, but nothing ever changes,” she explained. Grace believes nothing has been done is that Serrat’s ‘without windows’ on Cami daughter is the director of the Sant Miquel, near Benimeit, Auditori Teulada and ‘good friends’ with former health in Teulada. She said the dogs live su- councillor Rosa Ana Caselles rrounded by ‘excrement and and former mayor Carlos Liworms’ and they ‘never leave’ nares. A series of letters addressed the property. “I walk my dogs there every to both politicians pleading day and they bark non-stop,” for ‘a solution’ have gone Grace, who is secretary of unanswered. PLUTO Protectora Animales, “We want to give these dogs a life of liberty, without fleas, told the Olive Press. “Four denuncias, two instan- worms, poor nutrition and MISTREATED: Dogs trapped in abandoned house cias and a complaint to the horrific conditions,” read one EU Commission have been letter to Linares. to ‘understand Spanish cultucertainly not European behamade against their owner, She was recently told by Se- re’. rrat’s daughter that she failed “But is this really culture? It’s viour, or shouldn’t be,” added Grace, who retired to Spain 15 years for health reasons. She believes that the keen hunter Serrat, aged 77, is now ‘incapable’ of caring for his six dogs. However there is hope on TWO men have been arrested A WOMAN has been arrested after in the horizon with both LinaBarcelona after robbing 23 her dog died from strangulation and res and Caselles no longer in rists by using the ‘spitting’ touheatsmetroke. power after May’s elections. thod. The 27-year-old is charged with She hopes new councillor for The men were seen on CCTV animal abuse after her ‘dying’ pet was spotted Animal Welfare Adrian Ruiz tting on tourists, and while spion one a balcony in Valladolid. will be more ‘animal friendly’. offered to clean the victim’s After police officers saw the animal “The maltreatment of aniket the other made off with jac‘pantheir ting intensely’ and could not break mals really upsets me,” added suitcase. in, Boas, who narrowly missed a firemen were called to rescue the The thieves, of Peruvian nationaseat on Teulada council with But the dog could not be saved,animal. lity, reportedly made €73,000 and it in the PSOE in the recent electhe scam. died of ‘suffocation due to strangulation’, tions. according to a vet. “I’m really praying something can finally be done.”
side’ of animal rights activists. “The daughter complained to A WORLD CLASS INTERNATIONAL
ONE of the UK’s most dangerous men has been learning Spanish as part of his plan to relocate to Spain on his release. Infamous 62-year-old taxi rapist John Worboys - who now goes by the name John Derek Radford - is hoping to start a new life here, when released. But the sex offender, who was set to be released this year, may spend a lot more time behind bars at Wakefield prison after a massive public uproar. “He had all the books and DVDs and was becoming pretty fluent,” a source at the prison told a UK newspaper. “He wanted to eventually live in Spain where, worryingly, he’d be totally anonymous and God only knows what he’d get up to out there mixing with tourists. “He had also changed his name so he could slip under the radar.” Worboys was jailed in 2009 for a spate of sex assaults on 12 women in London. He could have obtained permission to travel abroad from probation officers after a Parole Board deemed him to be no longer a danger. But the decision is expected to be reversed when he goes in front of a judge to be sentenced in September after he admitted attacks on four more women.
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Family’s message to British carers who ‘laughed to relatives’ as they stole €270,000 from an infirm couple on the Costa Blanca
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